“To be honest with you, I never enjoyed playing baseball,” Hiroki Kuroda said. “I never enjoyed pitching, to be honest with you. Whether it’s a spring training game or a regular-season game, I like to put a certain amount of pressure on myself to be as normal as I can, even in that kind of atmosphere.”

…“I’m not saying this because I’m with the Yankees,” Kuroda said. “This has been all throughout my professional career. There’s a lot of responsibility as a starting pitcher, so rather than enjoy myself out there, I feel that I must fulfill my responsibility and that’s my priority.”

Kuroda pitched in the playoffs for the Dodgers so it’s probably an exaggeration to call this the biggest game of his career but it is his most crucial start in pinstripes.